[Screens Around Town] Brightkite, Chicago2016, and NBA Apr 27
12 comments Latest by Kula bácsi
Brightkite
Ryan Mendoza: “Came across this ‘we’ll let you know when it launches’ screen (at brightkite), which is a little bit out of the ordinary. It lets you get notified not only via email, but also via IM and SMS. Pretty neat, given that the product they’re promoting is about notifications.
Chicago2016
Derek Vaz: “Chicago2016.org has a nice litte form treatment for entering your reason why you support the bid. As an IA I’m always trying to make forms smaller, simpler and warmer. This actually invites me to ‘speak my mind’ instead of just ‘enter text here’.”
NBA fonts
Jeremy Wallace: “One often doesn’t see fonts competing like this...I’m going to have to go with the Jazz based on readability.”
NBA box score
Check out San Antonio veteran Robert Horry’s line from this NBA game (it’s since been modified).
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12 comments so far
Steve 27 Apr 07
There is something fishy about that NBA box score.
The picture here at the blog shows Duncan, Elson, and Finley all with 10 rebounds, whereas the image it’s linked to has nobody with over 10 rebounds.
The linked image appears to have been pulled from this game: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/boxscore?gid=2007032609
The included image looks like it was pulled from this game against the Suns: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/boxscore?gid=2007040524
I’d be inclined to call BS on this one and say somebody was having fun with photoshop.
ML 27 Apr 07
Steve, that screen did appear that way originally at Yahoo but it’s since been modified.
Michael Zuschlag 27 Apr 07
Re: Chicago 2016 and “This actually invites me.” Yeah, but then they blow it with the “in 25 words or less” requirement. Sheesh, I have to count my words? What a hassle. Forget it.
Solutions (ordered from most preferred): (1) Drop the size requirement. Let the size of the text box signal how much a user should write. (2) Change text to “Please describe in a few sentences…” which is easier for the user to estimate up front than number of words. (3) Provide a real-time updating read-out of “0 of the maximum allowed 25 words entered.”
Alex 27 Apr 07
What exactly does Brightkite do?
David Mulder 27 Apr 07
The NBA team names are meant to be in the style of each team’s logo font. Go Pistons!
Ryan 27 Apr 07
Actually, re: Bob Horry, that was the official line in the box score on multiple sites, I saw it when it was live on both NBA .com and yahoo.
Re: the NBA playoffs graph, the fonts themselves don’t differentiate the teams enough, I remember thinking that when I first saw that page. NBA teams work very hard to associate themselves with certain color schemes and as such the logos should be colored. I can tell you that the Lakers are purple and yellow but I can’t tell you what their font looks like.
Josh 27 Apr 07
I think Yahoo! Sports screws up sometimes, or they have a jokester in their midst. I have a screenshot of a live boxscore from last year’s MLB season that lists Ken Griffey Jr. as having “homered to third” ...
carlivar 27 Apr 07
Live scoring errors are made all the time – I think it’s similar to the people that input live closed-captioning text… mistakes happen when they are under the gun to do data entry as fast as possible.
I wonder if the Old Age joke was made by Yahoo or their scoring provider?
I vote for Bulls and Raptors as most readable fonts!
Luigi Montanez 28 Apr 07
@Michael Z.
I wouldn’t consider including the words “25 words or less” to be blowing it. No one is actually going to count, but they will try to be brief. If someone wants to leave a message, they will. An instruction won’t deter them. That being said, I agree that your alternate suggestions are much better.
I come from the political sphere, and that means implementing online petitions all the time. The speech bubble idea is so good and so obvious that I felt compelled to slap my forehead when I saw it. So thanks Derek for sharing—I’ll definitely be borrowing that idea for future implementations.
Jeremy Wallace 28 Apr 07
What I thought was most interesting with the NBA playoff brackets were the number of teams that use italics.
Obviously (as David Mulder and Ryan point out) the color schemes are off here, and so the fonts seem out of place.
Michael Vu 29 Apr 07
Go Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kula bácsi 02 May 07
Vu, are you retarded?
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